Morocco's Jan consumer inflation jumps to 2.2 pct Morocco's consumer inflation rate jumped to an annual 2.2 percent, more than twice its level in December, due mainly to higher food prices, its planning authority said. The food price index in January was 4.1 percent above its level a year earlier, the High Planning Commission (HCP) said in a statement. Compared with December, the consumer price index rose 0.2 percent, it said. The index recorded a 0.9 percent drop monthly drop in December. Pro-government thugs attack women demonstrators in Algeria Government tugs beat women and men and and injured many people using batons to break up a pro-democracy rally in the Algerian capital.Algerian police brandishing clubs, weaved their way through the crowd in central Algiers Saturday, banging their shields, tackling protesters. The gathering, organised by the Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria (CNCD), comes a week after a similar protest, which organisers said brought an estimated 10,000 people and up to 26,000 riot police onto the streets of the capital. Officials, however, put turnout at the previous rally at 1,500. Swiss help EU deal with Tunisian migrants Three Swiss experts will be helping the European Union deal with a wave of illegal migrants coming from Tunisia after last month's revolution. The EU's border agency, Frontex, started its work at Italy's southern border on Sunday. A Swiss team, consisting of two documentation specialists and an air surveillance expert, is set to join the mission. More than 5,000 people have traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa since the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. BP suspends gas, oil drilling preparations in Libya BP PLC has suspended preparations for exploratory drilling for oil and gas in western Libya due to growing unrest in the north African country, a spokesman for the British energy giant said on Monday. The company does not produce any oil or gas in Libya but has been readying an onshore rig to start drilling for fuel in the west of the country. “We are looking at evacuating some people from Libya, so those preparations are being suspended but we haven't started drilling and we are years away from any production,” the spokesman said. Sudan's Bashir Won't Run Again for Presidency, Party Says Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir won't run again for election in 2015, said Rabie Abdel Ati, a senior member of the ruling National Congress Party and adviser to the information minister. “His decision not to run was not because of any pressure or the circumstances in the other Arab countries,” Abdel Ati said in a phone interview from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Bashir came to power in a coup in 1989. He retained power in Sudan's first multiparty election in 24 years in April, gaining 68 percent of the vote. Observers from the Atlanta-based Carter Center and the European Union said the elections failed to meet international standards. Read more here. BM
